Pancakes
by neotantrika
Summary: In my world, this is how Nathan and Audrey's first date went.


**title**: pancakes

**author**: neotantrika

**fandom**: haven

**pairing**: nathan/audrey

**rating**: NC-17 for graphic sex

**disclaimer**: not my toys, or Haven would be on HBO and I'd have a lifetime subscription.

**spoilers**: for the season two finale.

**author's note**: I am just going to pretend the season finale didn't happen that way.

In the other universe, the one where what should happen, happens, this is how it really went.

He knocked and she opened the door and gawked.

"A _tie?_ An actual tie?" Audrey Parker said, amused to see Nathan so formally dressed. The jeans were the same, but the maroon tie and the navy jacket made him look ... older. More serious, as if it was possible for Nathan Wuornos to be more serious.

Nathan opened his mouth to speak, and froze. At that moment, Audrey knew the silver chemise top had been a mistake. Not just from the way he was staring at her chest, but from the breeze. She should have known better: the Atlantic Ocean began ten feet from her door, so she got hit with cold air every time she opened that door. But this time the thin silk could not hide the sudden tightening of her nipples, nor could it cool the sudden heat in her face.

She stepped back, turning away to hide her body's reaction. "Come on in out of the cold."

He stepped over her threshold, gazing around the room. He looked at her candles, her rugs, her walls. His level gaze took in the little kitchen, the reading chair, her bed hiding in a nook around the corner. He looked at anything but her, yet Audrey knew he was thinking of nothing else. She closed the French doors, shivering a little. Summer was definitely over in Haven, Maine.

"This is ... nice," Nathan said hoarsely. "Love what you've done with the place."

"I didn't kn ow you'd been here before." She stepped into the kitchen and checked her pancakes. One was done, so she expertly flipped it onto a warming plate.

"I was up here once, just after Duke got the Gull. He was using this floor to store stuff."

Something in his tone made her turn and look. "Contraband?"

His lazy smile. "Maybe. He shooed me out pretty quick, and I didn't have probable cause for a search."

She handed him a plate. "Better eat these before they get cold." He took the plate, carefully keeping his gaze on her face. He sat down and she turned back to the tiny kitchen, busying herself with the syrup, the butter. "So let me guess. You staked out the place?"

"Yup. Never caught him sneaking anything out, but next thing I heard this place was empty and for rent."

"Bacon or sausage? Bacon, then." She pulled the warming plate with the bacon out of the oven. She sat down, at right angles to him at the tiny table. Without asking, she passed him the blueberry syrup he normally asked for in the diner. "I guess that explains the smell when I moved in."

He forked pancakes, lifted an eyebrow. "Smell?"

"I'd say Duke had been smuggling cigarettes. Either that, or the Grey Gull is violating the ban on smoking. Either way, I had to leave the windows open for half a week to get rid of the odor."

Nathan looked around; she knew he would remember every detail if asked to describe her apartment later. "Well, it smells nice now."

"Like pancakes, I hope," she said. She noticed his plate was clean. "Wow. You're hungry."

A corner of his mouth curved up. "You make good pancakes."

"Thanks!" She stood, reaching for his plate. "More on the way." In the kitchen, she stirred the batter again, poured it onto the hot griddle. "How about you? What's your specialty?"

She heard the chair creak and knew he was leaning back. "Mackerel."

She turned, spatula in hand, and gave him an incredulous stare. "You're kidding, right? That salted stuff?"

He put his hands behind his head, rocking gently on the back legs of the chair. "You've never had real Maine mackerel, then. Fresh out of the water off Cape Elizabeth, grilled with olive oil, fresh lemon juice, and oregano. It has to be a charcoal grill, though."

She slipped two more pancakes on his stack and handed his plate to him. "Where did you learn that? Your mom?"

His face darkened a little. "No, actually Duke taught me. We used to go fishing together. Flounder, sole, mackerel. We caught it all." He picked up his fork but stared at his pancakes. "That was a long time ago."

She propped her elbows on the table, toying with her water glass. "You two were so close, once."

Nathan looked uncomfortable. "The Troubles changed a lot of things."

And there is was again, the subject that hung over every conversation, every moment for residents of Haven: the Troubles. Audrey looked away, staring past Nathan into memory, remembering her conversation with Lucy Ripley, the woman whose memories she once had had in her head, if people could be believed. "And when the Troubles are over, Nathan? What then?"

He looked at her, a direct gaze out of those blue eyes. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I've been thinking, after what happened the other day..." Audrey stopped, struck by the sudden wariness in his face. "I mean, things might change again, after."

"Not everything," he said, and she knew he was thinking of her, of him, of them.

She felt her face heat up, and dammit there went her nipples again, a slow flush climbing her whole body as she remembered how she had kissed him, a couple of days ago. _What that meant for a man with his Trouble. _By his sudden interest in his pancakes, she knew Nathan had seen her nipples rise under the silk as well, thought maybe he was remembering that kiss, too. She watched the tips of his ears turn red.

"Nathan, look at me," she said gently.

His look was more open than usual. More vulnerable. She could hurt this man who could feel no one else. She could hurt him deep, hurt him to the edge of death. She had to tread carefully. "I ... I don't know how to say this."

His face hardened, his eyes shifted away from hers. He tensed against the blow, the disappointment he saw coming. It hurt her to the core that he had so little faith in her. In _them_. So she reached out and laid a hand over his.

His hand was warm, rough. He stared down at their hands.

"Nathan, I ... I'm just afraid that what you feel, what you said you feel, may not be real."

He looked into her eyes then, shocked. "Not real? Audrey-"

She held up her other hand. "Nathan, you can feel my hand."

"Yes," he whispered, eyes still on her face.

"And you think you ... feel _for_ me."

"I don't think, I _know_," he said strongly. He would have said more, but she raised her hand to shush him again.

"But what happens when the Troubles are over? What happens on the day when you can feel others? Other ... women?" And there it was, her deepest fear, hanging between them.

He didn't answer right away, but sat with her hand on top of his, a fork in his other hand, syrup running down the tines. His eyes searched hers, that open blue gaze, as wide as the sea that had nurtured him.

And then he set the fork down very carefully, and with his other hand raised her hand in his. He brought her fingers to his lips, kissed them. His mouth was soft on her fingers, delicate. "You think my feelings are based only on the fact that I can feel you?"

She nodded, unable to speak, knowing her smile was full of anxiety and self-doubt.

"Audrey Parker," he said in a low voice. "Or Lucy Ripley. Or Sarah. Whatever you call yourself, in whatever time or place, whether you know me or not, whether I can feel your touch or not, I love you. I will always love you."

Her insides felt like melted butter. She could not move. He kissed her fingers, one by one, and then laid her hand gently back on the table.

Then Audrey felt it blossom in her - not just love, but hope. She'd given up on it, after things went wrong with Chris Brody. She'd decided that connecting was impossible, understanding was impossible, that real love was impossible. And this man handed it to her with both hands. Asking nothing, Nathan gave her everything.

She rose, and he looked startled, then hopeful, when she took his hands in hers. "Nathan..."

His napkin fell off his lap as he stood (so tall, Audrey winced, wondering if he would hit his head, knowing he would not feel it if he knocked himself out). His grasp was firm, his expression adorably flustered. "Audrey?"

"You owe me a kiss, Nathan," she said, and stepped close.

He needed no second invitation. Hands cupped her face, drew her close. His mouth tasted hers; his tasted of syrup and coffee. He nibbled along her lower lip, took his time sampling here, there, now at the corner of her mouth, then a lazy trail of his tongue along her closed lips, teasing. She opened for him, and there he was, solid and hot and real, dancing, inviting. How could a man so numb be so sensual?

This time her nipples rose hard and fast, vulnerable and sensitive. The silk whispered over them, teasing them even as Nathan drew her close against his body. She felt the denim of his shirt, the warmth of his body seeping through. His jacket was rough against her hypersensitive skin, but his hands now skimming down her neck, her shoulders, her arms were big, powerful, gentle. His mouth followed, tracing a line down her cheek to her jaw, her neck, rising along her jaw to nibble at her ear.

"Audrey," he whispered. Just her name, asking for nothing but the chance to say it here in that private voice no one else had ever heard. "Audrey..."

The wind slapped at the windows, and her windows reflected the soft candlelight flickering around the room. She remembered another man, another night here in this room, other candles that flickered and wavered. But Nathan was not Chris, and she was not that woman any more. She ran her hands up Nathan's chest, shoved at his jacket. He stepped back immediately, covering her hands with his.

"Audrey, I'm not expecting-"

She caught his hands in hers, drew them down. And placed them firmly over her breasts. Nathan drew in a shocked breath, but his gaze was riveted on her chest. Slowly, his fingers moved against the silk, caught a nipple, stroked delicately. Audrey shivered at the delicious sensation of Nathan's hands on her.

She pressed herself against him, rising on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. "Touch me, Nathan. Let _me_ feel _you_."

A tremor went through him, an involuntary reaction that told her his body was way ahead of his heart in this matter. His hands stilled, then moved again. Delicate, tender, his touch was careful, tentative, as if he were afraid to break her. He stroked one finger around a nipple (which, impossibly, rose harder and more sensitive still). Audrey made herself stand quiet, focusing on his touch, on this exploration. She let him pick his own pace, lingering on the swell of her breast, the slickness of silk, the lace edging the chemise. He bent slowly, and ran his lips along her shoulder, dipping to her collarbone in a gesture that almost bent him double. His hair brushed her cheek-like silk, clean smelling, _Nathan_.

She looked up into his face. His defenses were down, his face was unguarded, open. "I love you, Nathan," she whispered.

And then something, some control, broke in Nathan and he crushed her to him, burying his face in her hair, whispering her name over and over and over. Her arms went around him, feeling the solid weight of him, and she buried her face against his chest, feeling his heart thunder under her cheek, feeling the strength in those long arms, and the longing that poured out of his every pore.

Audrey locked her hands behind his neck and whispered into the angle of his jaw. "The bed is right around the corner, Nathan."

He took her weight in his arms, locking them tight together, but he still hesitated. "We don't have to-"

She silenced him with a kiss, and this time she let him feel all of it - the loneliness, the fear that she's not even real, the deeper fear that she won't be able to help the Troubled, that it will all spin out of control, and the hope and love that float above all that, that carry her through the day. Most of all, she let her mouth tell him about love and trust and simple joy, about partnership and a meeting of two minds that could not be more disparate, and yet are so close no words are needed.

Whatever frail arguments he might have had melted and she felt the muscles in his shoulders and biceps flex and bunch as he hoisted her, arms under her butt, mouth locked to hers. With his eyes closed, he stumbled a little, but Nathan was never clumsy and his sense of direction was first rate. He rested against the foot rail a moment, then turned and fell backward onto her bed, risking a concussion as his head missed the bedside table by an inch. She landed on him, laughing into the shared kiss, feeling his belly flutter against hers as he laughed, too. Nathan hardly ever laughed, and this one had a tone in it she had never heard before - freedom?

Audrey felt greedy and powerful and hot now, so she tore at his jacket, his tie, unbuttoned his shirt with flying fingers. He lay still, letting her, watching her face with a slow, hot smile. The smile wavered a bit when her fingers brushed his bare chest, when she shoved open his shirt, leaned down and kissed the center of his chest. Right there where the pectorals rose, where the fine dark hair scattered soft across his skin. She heard him suck in his breath, heard him hold it. She laid her cheek against his skin, warm and soft, heard his heart booming. His hands circled her waist, drifted down to cup her bottom where she straddled him. She pressed her mouth to one flat nipple and felt him arch under her. He moaned, then his face flooded with red embarrassment.

"It's okay," she said. "If it's too much-"

His look turned molten, he grabbed her, rolling. Then his weight was on her, she was pinned to the bed under the full length of Nathan Wuornos, and instead of feeling dominated and threatened she felt ... safe. His mouth was on her neck, then drifting down her chest. He nuzzled one silk-covered breast, laid his head on her chest to hear her heart as she had listened to his.

"Never too much," he whispered, his lips fluttering the silk. "Never enough of you, Audrey."

She clasped her arms around his head, which squeezed her breasts against his face, and there was that moan again. A happy moan, a blissful moan. Audrey reached down, wriggled, stripped off the chemise, and lay naked from the waist up in Nathan's arms. His cheek was smooth against her breast - she realized he had shaved before coming over. He nuzzled, licked, drifted mouth and tongue over and around. He drew one nipple into his mouth, savoring her. Releasing it, he blew gently, watching as her nipple rose against the cool air.

Audrey chuckled. "You're playing with me, sir," she teased.

His look held pure devilry in it. "You have no idea how I want to play with you," he said huskily. And bent his head again. Slowly, carefully, he explored every inch of her torso, her neck, her shoulders. He came back again and again to her mouth, tasting and teasing, delighting. Mouth, hands, fingers, tongue - he used everything he had to touch her.

Until she could take no more. Flushed and panting, she caught his face between her hands. "I can't wait, Nathan." She kissed him hard, deep. His breath caught, his body stilled. Audrey snaked one hand down his body, between them, sliding under his belt. Her jerked, gasped, then froze when she found him.

"Ah. Nathan..." she moaned. "Touch me."

"Everywhere," he breathed. "_Everywhere_, Audrey."

He was a blur of movement for a few heartbeats, shucking clothes right and left. She pushed her jeans off, watched him shed jacket, shirt, boots, jeans and every inhibition he had left. She winced to see the scars on him, the bruises, the welts. Was that a burn? Then all such questions fled, as the candlelight painted him in all his long, lean muscle and bone. He was built for speed, all knees and elbows and sinew, the long neck and longer arms, the big feet and hands. He would age, she suddenly realized, into one of those old men who are tall and lanky, not fat or paunchy, but upright and straight-limbed until the day they laid him in his grave. And somehow, thinking of Nathan aging, growing old, changing, made something in her go even softer and more open.

She held her arms open. "Come," she said.

He dove, and then his hands were everywhere - stroking, touching, feeling every curve and nook, every dimple and round, full softness. His breath ghosted along her arms, across her belly as he explored. Good investigator that he was, he left nothing untouched. His hands shaped her breasts, outlined her hips and thighs. He stroked fingers down every inch of skin, sliding between her thighs, parting them while she trembled, hands spread wide on his shoulders. His hands memorized her, she could feel him locking away the memory of every sensation, something to take out and savor another time. And that said so much to her of his loneliness that her heart ached, and she wrapped her arms around him and rose under him, seeking, without words, to join.

He said nothing, but his look was long and deep. He read her answer in her eyes, and raised himself on his hands. She locked her legs around his (strong thighs, lean and muscular), and he slid home, finding his welcome in her soft sigh of pleasure. Audrey let her head fall back, closed her eyes, and felt him. Not just his arms and legs and torso, not the hardness of him or the stretch of him, but the man _inside_ his head, the one who had been locked away from this bliss for so long. She heard his long, wordless moan, felt him shudder with sheer joy when he sank into her, felt him tense with pent-up desire. He moved in her, and she moved with him, matching him, reveling in him.

Under her hands, his shoulders tensed and released, bunching as he thrust, holding her tight against him as if he would never let her go. She could feel him holding back, trying to rein in the flood, felt the tremor that went through him when she shifted, taking him deeper. He slid one hand possessively down from her shoulder to breast, cupped it as he thrust, as he buried his face in her hair. She slid a hand between them, felt where he joined her, heard him exclaim into the pillow, a shout of sheer lust. And then suddenly the fire was spiraling outward from her center, and she was rising to meet him, and he plunged harder, deeper, gasping like a runner at the finish line.

Then it all blossomed outward like a silent, soft explosion in her center, like the warmth of one candle suddenly magnified into a fiery blaze. She shuddered in Nathan's arms with joy and passion. She heard his muffled cry, felt him gasping in her arms as he spilled into her. Then he went very still, muscles slowly releasing, settling his weight across her body in silent surrender. A long, deep sigh eased out of him; she felt it against her neck. He burrowed deeper into her, refusing to release her, holding her entire length tight against him. She said nothing, lying with eyes closed, inhaling the smell of hot skin, sweat, aftershave. She let one hand stroke his shoulder, over and over, a lazy caress that spoke of the familiarity of lovers, the tender touch of united souls. Half asleep, she heard him murmur something.

"Hmm?" she purred, feeling his warm body pressing her into the mattress.

"You'll freeze," he growled.

She chuckled, and her breasts rose against his chest, and she felt him tighten all over and smiled, knowing now that he was hers, hers, hers. One of his long arms snaked out and grabbed the bed cover. He rolled, taking her with him, still pressed along his long body, and then they were wrapped in a cocoon. Snuggled together side by side in a quilt burrito, she smiled into his shoulder (tasting of salt).

"Your feet are sticking out of the quilt," she said. "You'll get cold."

"No, I won't," he said, his breath tickling her cheek. "I'm warm for the rest of my life." His hand slipped around, cupped her bottom and pressed her against him. "This could get complicated, Audrey."

"Doesn't have to be," she said. Contentment slid over her, urging her towards sleep. Right now she could think of only one thing better than sleeping in Nathan's arms, and they'd just done that. "Nobody has to know."

"People...the Troubles...so much can come between us."

She reached up and brought his mouth down to hers. "It doesn't matter," she said. "You know that I always come back."

THE END


End file.
